6. The sage's ghost, an injured archer, and 3 months of training

On high alert David walks into the hallway of doors and slowly approaches the door at the end. The door is no longer covered in glowing symbols and cracked open. David walks into the room and is instantly surprised at what he sees, this room was a huge library and office.

Every wall was covered with books on shelves except for three doors, the one he came in from and two along the back wall. There was a big wooden desk and chair on the left side, and on the right side of the room was a sitting area with a couch, two arm chairs, and a coffee table on top of a rug.

David would of loved to have looked around more but he needed to find out who the voice belonged to. Standing in the middle of the room was a transparent old man, in place of his legs was a long wispy tail.

" Hi Young traveler, my name is Vassos Gryffend. I was one one of the strongest sage's in all of Cerzala 800 years ago, and I see you have found my hidden home." Said the ghost now identified as Vassos, he went on to say that he knows that he's a ghost now.

Vassos tells David that he's been watching him ever since he came in the cave, and that he is very fascinated with what he just did. Vassos has met tons of dragon born with a core throughout his life, but never someone who miraculously developed one.

David and Vassos conversed for two hours before Vassos asked David for a favor. Vassos wanted help finding someone to inherit all his knowledge, skills, and his mantle of sage of runes. Of course David would receive something in return, Vassos offered to impart to him knowledge on magic and on alchemy.

Vassos said that there was two ways he could impart his knowledge into him, but his choice will determine the amount of time he has for searching. The first method would do it in small batches over a span of 10 years, and would leave 20 years before his soul dissipates.

The second method consisted of him creating a concentrated Orb to digest and would take 3 months, but it strained his soul taking away nine years of time. David told Vassos that he would like to do the second method and that he believed that he might have a perfect candidate for his inheritance.

With the agreement done Vassos begins to impart his knowledge to David. The light in the room disappears leaving only one source, at the top of Vassos hand an Orb of light appears and starts to grow. Soon specks is light move towards the Orb, the room now looks like a night sky filled with shooting stars.

Two minutes later Vassos stops and the light returns in the room, in his hand is an Orb the size of a grape radiating the colors of a rainbow. Vassos tells David to sit in a lotus position as he hands him the Orb, David sits on the floor and swallowed the Orb.

David feels a very warm comforting milky energy through his body and mind, feeling relaxed David enters a meditative state. After two hours of being in an enlightened meditative state, David awakes feeling his mind overflowing with knowledge.

Looking at the shocked look on David's face Vassos recommends that he should train and familiarize himself with his to use this knowledge. David agrees with him and says that that is a great idea and he would benefit a lot from it.. Hearing his agreement Vassos also recommends that David take the rest of the day to rest his mind and start tomorrow.

David spent the rest of the day just relaxing, cooking and talking with Vassos. After a good night of sleep David got up the next morning ready to start. After cooking age eating breakfast David began his training schedule, he worked out the schedule with Vassos the day before

The schedule consisted of meditation, spell practice, weapon practice, physical strengthening, and actual combat use hunting in the forest. For three months David stuck to this regiment and spending two weeks for each of the seven elements Vassos knew.

David spent the last week of the three months experimenting with shadow magic a form of dark magic, the only element Vassos didn't know. On David's final day of his three month training, he was out hunting with shadow like normal until he sensed a large amount of mana being compressed.

With in a minute of sensing the mana compression, David hears a woman scream followed by an explosion. David and shadow quickly runs towards the area they sensed the mana at. They arrived in a plain right above the waterfall that hides the secret cave hideout on the mountain.

In this plain was a herd of six charge rams, charge rams resembles a fusion of a goat and ram and was as tall as a horse. Opposite the herd separated by a massive crater was a woman about a meter tall with blonde long hair. The woman was in a bad state but didn't look life threatening, though it was clear that she was beginning to lose consciousness.

The rams began to charge at her and seeing as she wasn't in any condition to fight David decided to lend her a hand. David tells shadow to bind them and rushes at the rams. Shadow binds the rams using one of the techniques he learned in training called shadow bind. Shadow bind conjures black shadowy tendrils from the ground that wraps and binds the target.

With the rams bound David quickly behead all six rams in a second. David quickly dismantled and stored the bodies and went to check on the woman, as he approached her she thanked him right before passing out.

David catches her before she could hit the ground, he picks up the remains of what looks like a bow and heads to the cave. Not wanting to expose the secret hideout David didn't go all the way inside, he treated her wounds and set up a make shift camp.

While she was still out cold David went to the hideout and told Vassos that he would be leaving the next day most likely. While packing up Vassos approaches him and hands him a stone, he said that it will glow blue when near the perfect inheritor for him.

The darker the blue the better he said, with that David bid Vassos goodbye and returned to the camp.